Slamlandia ft. Nykole Jackson

Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community.

This event takes place in-person. Proof of Covid-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test is required for admittance. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts.

Hosted by Julia Gaskill.

Julia Gaskill

Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her poetry examines the tightrope we sometimes walk of feeling our voices censored and also being unabashedly ourselves. Her poems touch on everyday misogyny, parental loss, praise of femininity, mental unrest, found healing, and her deep love of being a geek. Julia has competed multiple times on national stages with her work, and she has been the featured reader on poetry mics all across this country. Her work has been published on FreezeRay Poetry, NAILED, Ink&Nebula, Rising Phoenix Review, Knight’s Library Magazine, and more, and videos of her poetry have been featured on both Write About Now and SlamFind. Her poem ‘i will not beg for scraps’ was nominated for Best of the Net in 2015. Julia is the author of four chapbooks, runs the mic Slamlandia, and co-founded the Bigfoot Regional Poetry Slam in 2019. Find Julia at facebook.com/jgaskpoetry

Join us on SEPTEMBER 15TH for an IN PERSON Poetry Open Mic and Slam!
Doors and sign-ups are at 6:30 PM, show begins at 7:00 PM.

Both our poetry open mic and poetry slam will have 10 slots. Because we have had a huge sign up turn out recently, moving forward we will be doing a lottery. The sign up list for the open mic will be pulled at 6:55pm and if there are more than 10 sign ups there will be a lottery for the poets who will get to read. If there are 10 sign ups or less, everyone gets to read. Same goes for the poetry slam.

Literary Arts
925 SW Washington Street
Portland, OR 97205

Here are some important COVID-related things to note:
— You must provide your vaccine card / proof of a recent negative test result at the door
— While not mandatory, masks are STRONGLY ENCOURAGED
— We will have limited, spaced seating and should we get a big turn out at this first show we might start putting a cap on attendees
— COVID is still a very real thing, please be smart and safe and, if you are feeling ill the day before/of, please stay home and do not come to this event
— Keep an eye on our social media for any more updates

We will have a feature from our BlackBerry Peach Poetry Slam representative, the incredible Nykole Jackson!

Nykole Jackson is an 18 year old recent high school graduate from McDaniel High School. Nykole first fell in love with sports, then music but always loved writing and would get excited when it came time to read or write poetry and short stories in her classes. Nykole first performed in a small coffee shop a poem she wrote during a freshman English class. She went on to win first place with the same poem three years later in both the Verselandia and Slamlandia 2022 competitions. It has always been a dream of Nykole’s to share her story with people, whether it’s through music, sports, fashion or art. Poetry is one way that she loves expressing herself.

This show is all ages.
Please see our Accessibility and Safer Space info below.
No door admission.

★ •*´¨`*• O P E N • M I C •*´¨`*• ★
The open mic will start the show out. The open mic is a great way to share your wonderful poetry! You can share 1-2 poems lasting a maximum of 3 minutes. 10 slots only in the open mic.
★ •*´¨`*• T H E • S L A M •*´¨`*• ★
☆ The slam will be 2 rounds.
There are 10 slots in the poetry slam.☆
☆ Poems will be scored on a scale of 0-10. There will be 5 judges. The lowest score and highest score for each poet will be dropped and the middle 3 scores will be added together.
☆ There is a 3 minute time limit for poems performed in the slam – with a 10 second grace period. A 1/2-point time penalty will be subtracted from the poet’s score for every 10 seconds they go past the time limit.
☆ The 5 poets with the highest scores will move on to the 2nd round.
★ •*´¨`*• A C C E S S I B I L I T Y •*´¨`*• ★
There is one entrance with no stairs. The event is on the bottom floor of the building. Any seating can be adjusted to make room for any accessibility equipment. There is also a bathroom that can be accessed on the first floor.
★ •*´¨`*• S A F E R • S P A C E • P O L I C Y •*´¨`*• ★
(1) – Slamlandia is committed to the safety of our community and all of its members. This includes but is not limited to performers, audience members, venue staff, volunteers, featured poets, and Executive Council members. We will not allow any act of hate, bigotry, harassment, or violence within our space and will prohibit the entrance of those who have committed these acts in or outside of our space.
(2) – The Slamlandia community is a community based in consent. It is the responsibility of individuals initiating contact to receive enthusiastic consent for the following activities:
☆ Physical contact
☆ Discussion of personal or heavy topics
☆ Discussion of poetry shared on stage
(3) – Slamlandia does not censor our mic and space – with the exception of hate speech. Hate speech includes, but is not limited to threats of violence, the use of slurs for a group you do not belong to, racism, sexism, transphobia, transmisogyny, homophobia, classicism, and ableism.
☆ Marginalized voices expressing anger toward the group of people oppressing them does not fall under the category of hate speech.
☆ In the event that a performer is using hate speech on stage, an Executive Council member will end their performance and ask them to leave the stage.
☆ In the event that a performer uses hate speech, it is the responsibility of the Executive Council to explain to the performer why this was a violation of our hate speech policy to the best of their ability and point them to resources for further explanation

[from Facebook Event Page]